In practice, many components and particularly sensor elements having movable structural elements are manufactured from so-called SOI (silicon on insulator) wafers. The structure of an SOI wafer normally includes a monocrystalline silicon layer connected to a silicon substrate via a silicon oxide layer. The component structure is formed in the monocrystalline silicon layer. Movable structural elements are exposed by removing the silicon oxide layer under these structural elements. For this reason, the silicon oxide layer is also called a sacrificial layer. The sacrificial layer is usually removed in an etching process, in which normally other parts of the component structure are undercut as well. This proves problematic in practice, especially with regard to fixed elements of the component structure such as electrodes, for example. That is to say, in sacrificial layer etching, the silicon oxide underneath the electrodes is attacked as well. To date, it is only possible to ensure that the electrodes are mechanically anchored to the silicon substrate if the electrodes have certain minimum dimensions, so that they are not completely undercut during the etching of the sacrificial layer.